


Jaydin Grows Up

by jerybird



Category: snonk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26603032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerybird/pseuds/jerybird
Summary: Emory's past was Not Cool.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Jaydin Grows Up

Emory did not expect Jaydin.  
He expected a boy. A human boy.  
Jaydin was neither of those.  
She was small, smaller even than him.  
She was frightened, so frightened Emory was surprised she was still standing.  
Clearris had shoved her into the room on the third floor, second from the end, and they had shut the door. For once Emory almost wished they would come back, because there were many things he couldn’t do and comforting a crying girl was one of them.  
“What’s your name?” he asked at last.  
The girl just stared at him. Then, in a small voice, “Jaydin.”  
“Come on, Jaydin,” Emory said. “Let’s go to bed.”

One.  
Jaydin was taller than him now.  
“Girls grow before boys do,” she’d said to him. “My mom told me so.”  
Emory didn’t have a mom, or at least not one that talked to him, and so he didn’t say anything.  
At night, it was Jaydin who held him now.   
Emory felt weak. Fragile. Useless. Dead.  
Jaydin held him.

Eighteen.  
Their first fight was tonight.  
Clearris had given them each a sword. They liked Emory better -- after all, he had provided eighteen times more than Jaydin so far -- and so his sword was better.  
“No fair,” Jaydin said. She looked frightened.  
“Don’t worry,” Emory said, because Emory could be strong if he had to. “I won’t hurt you.”  
“You will,” Jaydin said. “I can’t win.”  
Emory knew she was right. Girls grew first, but he was still stronger.  
“Just stab me, then,” he said, pointing at his arm. “Right there. It’ll be over before you know it.”  
Jaydin looked so relieved afterwards that it almost kept the hurt away.

Seventy-seven.  
The fights were more often now. Less formulaic now.  
Jaydin was growing stronger.  
Emory didn’t want to be strong.  
They fought, metal on metal.   
Emory nicked Jaydin’s shoulder once.   
It was an accident, he protested, days later, days after he’d found her note, but she glared like he was the enemy.  
You always win, he tried. She rolled her eyes.  
Emory’s arm was a mess of scars, but he never touched her again.

One hundred and fifty-one.  
“I’m going to run away,” Emory said.  
Jaydin looked surprised. “Why?”  
Because Clearris was insane, Emory politely informed her, and he really didn’t like it here much.  
Jaydin’s surprise didn’t wane. “But they need you. I need you.”  
The first point didn’t move Emory in the slightest.  
The second did.  
“Alright,” he said, cradling his arm, his back. “Okay.”

Two hundred and three.  
He didn’t know how many times Jaydin had died.  
Maybe only that once.  
She never seemed to hurt, at least. Never seemed to flinch away from him in the bed at night. Sure, Clearris kicked Emory out of the room sometimes. They all acted like she was dying, too.  
Emory didn’t think she was at all.  
He would die three, four, five times per “session.” Clearris called it “option three.” Most of the time it wasn’t an option at all.  
It was okay, though. Emory had offered to take her place. He was glad she wasn’t hurting.

Two hundred and ninety-six.  
God, Emory was tired.


End file.
